"You have been my worst enemy."
"I take issue with you there at once. I've never had a thought toward you that was not most kind and loyal.
"Loyal!" she replied, bitterly; "that word in itself is a stab."
"Miss Warren," I said, very gently, "you make discord in the old garden to-day."
She dropped her letter on the ground and sank on the seat again. Such a passion of sobs shook her slight frame that I trembled with apprehension. But I kept quiet, believing that Nature could care for her child better than I could, and that her outburst of feeling would bring relief. At last, as she became a little more self-controlled, I said, gravely and kindly:
"There must be some deep cause for this deep grief."
"Oh, what shall I do?" she sobbed. "What shall I do? I wish the earth would open and swallow me up."
"That wish is as vain as it is cruel. I wish you would tell me all, and let me help you. I think I deserve it at your hands."
"Well, since you know so much, you may as well know all. It doesn't matter now, since every one will soon know. He has written that his business will take him to Europe within a month—that we must be married—that he will bring his sister here to-night to help me make arrangements. Oh! oh! I'd rather die than ever see him again. I've wronged him so cruelly, so causelessly."
In wild exultation I snatched a pocketbook from my coat and cried: